Tuesday, December 15, 2009

I am identifying garbage arguments that appear in the claims of morally contemptible anti-warming-deniers that are easily to discredit but still used. Their use indicates that those who use it have little or no concern with the potential destruction of whole cities.

They are reckless individuals who have little regard to the harm that might come to others as a result of their actions. If they were not morally contemptible individuals - if they were morally responsible individuals with a proper concern for the welfare of others - they would not allow these arguments to contaminate their claims in the debate regarding global warming.

So far I have referenced the Three Percent Argument, the Its Not The End of the World argument, and the Ice Age Fears of the 1970s Argument.

Another garbage argument found in the political arena holds that it is clearly the case that carbon dioxide levels (and global temperatures) have changed in the past. Yet, clearly, humans had nothing to do with those changes. Therefore, the argument goes, we may dismiss any claims that humans are responsible for the changes we see in the climate today.

Imagine a trial in which an individual is being accused of murder. In any murder trial, a conviction or acquittal must be based on the evidence presented in this case. However, the defense attorney makes the following argument:

"I have records here of a billion people who died, none of whom were murdered by my client. Here is a case of an individual who fell down a mine shaft to his death thirty years before my client was even born. And here I have an account of a general who was shot and killed at the Battle of Gettysburg. My client obviously did not murder him. I have the parish of a town in France that lists scores of people who were killed when black death swept through the town. My client did not murder them. With all of these deaths that were not caused by my client, clearly you must return a verdict of 'not guilty' in accusing my client of this particular murder."

This might be a great argument for befuddling the jury and confusing them into giving a bad verdict. However, it is a garbage argument. Yes, we know that there are a lot of different ways in which people can die other than by being murdered by this particular defendant. Yet, the question before the court is whether this death was brought about by the defendant in a way that constitutes murder. The video and the forensic evidence are sufficient to show that, in this case, the defendant is guilty in spite of the fact that billions of people have died of other causes.

Of course, in proving one's case one has to examine and rule out other potential causes. However, the mere fact that other potential causes exists - the mere fact that people have died that the client did not murder - the mere fact that CO2 levels have changed independent of human activity - is not proof of innocence.

The question the responsible person asks is, "Have these options been investigated and reason given to dismiss them?" The morally reckless individual asserts over and over again that humans are not the only things that cause these changes as if that is sufficient to prove that humans cannot be blamed.

Similarly, we know for a fact that there are things other than human activity that affect the global climate. However, it is morally irresponsible to claim that this fact alone is enough to prove that humans are not responsible for activities that affect the climate today and in the future. That argument depends on the evidence presented in this case.

If ever you see the Natural Climate Change argument in the claims made by a global-warming denier, think of this defense attorney using the "My Client Could Not Have Killed Everybody" argument to argue that his client should be declared innocent of murder. Where this argument appears, you have sufficient evidence to conclude that the person making it morally contemptible individual who has no qualms against contaminating public discussion with garbage arguments.

You are dealing with somebody who does not care about the possibility that he could be misleading people into behaving in ways that could lead to the destruction of whole cities. He is, quite content to spew garbage and, if it leads to the deaths of whole populations, so be it, That is not his concern.

A morally responsible person, on the other hand, will take the pains to figure out whether the arguments he is thinking of putting into his works are sound or not - whether they provide good evidence in support of his conclusion or are garbage arguments. He is as interested in avoiding garbage arguments as he is in providing good arguments. He refuses to argue recklessly when there is so much potentially at stake, just as he would refuse to drive while drunk or to point a found gun at a random stranger and pull the trigger. Concern over who might unjustly suffer as a result of his actions prevents this type of recklessness.

Accordingly, a person who commits this type of recklessness lacks the concerns that a morally responsible person would have. He is reckless, and is as contemptible and worthy of condemnation as the drunk driver or the shootist. He is, in fact, orders of magnitude worse than the drunk driver or the shootist because his intellectual recklessness shows that he is indifferent to potential harms that are orders of magnitude worse than those that the drunk driver or the shootist might inflict on others.

8 comments:

The point that I was trying (although totally ineffectually as I reread it now!)to make is this:

We know that these things have fluctuated in the past, and it did not become a runaway, planet killing process. Therefore there must be some natural process that promote and inhibit the greenhouse gas level. Obviously, we do not understand all of these processes well enough to definitively state cause and effect. I think that before we commit the planet to such a divisive and potentially economically destructive path, we need to make very sure that we are creating a potentially runaway situation that we need to make ourselves responsible to stop.

So far, I have heard nothing that says that we are definitively sparking a situation that could turn into a runaway effect, nor have I heard that we really posses the capability to reverse it.

Plant life on the planet has the best chance for reversal in my opinion, but back to the extinction point, if we hold everything in stasis at great expense, we will never know if a natural process would have corrected the spike.

I think a great deal more study before extreme sacrifice is indicated. That is NOT to say that we should be unmindful and wantonly wasteful and reckless, but we should make sure that we are causing a real problem, that will not be naturally corrected before we kill ourselves to stop it.

Just as an aside, I have nothing but the utmost respect for you and your blog, and I feel hugely outmatched to disagree with you.

Talk about morally reprehensible. EVERYBODY who is a skeptic is in your eyes "morally contemptible" and "reckless" and "morally irresponsible" and "worthy of contempt." Does that kind of hyperbole work in your day job? Everybody who disagrees with me is unethical, and a morally contemptible individual.

As a lawyer, I can tell you that if other people have died of this very malady as the alleged victim, then YES, it is VERY relevant what has happened in the past. Say the person died of a heart attack. My client's on trial for murder, then yes it is relevant that heart disease is a leading cause of natural death. The prosecution then has a very heavy burden of proof to rule out natural causes. It is not "unethical" to point this out. In fact, it would be malpractice not to point it out. That would be the beginning point of the trial. If the prosecution does not prove that this particular time the heart attack was caused by my client.

You seem to be entirely too invested in this topic. You have lost (if you ever had it) the ability to discuss this issue rationally. But even still, I don't stoop to calling you "morally reprehensible", I just think you are too emotionally invested in the topic.

Here's a free tip from the court room. [I assume that you actually want to convince people that your position is the correct position.] Quit writing as though you were a street preacher, screaming and shouting, calling everybody else a sinner, crazy and wrong if they don't believe exactly the same way that you do. Concede points you can't win (such as those e-mails in Climategate, and that those "scientists" ought to be fired), tone down the hyperbole, grant that there are good people on both sides of the issue.

Stick to the facts. Right now, you are just a wild-eyed know-it-all who is turning off all but other rabid believers. Course, if you don't want to persuade people, just keep up what you are doing.

EVERYBODY who is a skeptic is in your eyes "morally contemptible" and "reckless" and "morally irresponsible" and "worthy of contempt." Does that kind of hyperbole work in your day job?

This is classic projection. You make a greatly exaggerated and false claim - dare I say a hyperbolic claim - and in the very next sentence you accuse your opponent of hyperbole. The self-blindness is staggering. No wonder you can do little but sputter.

If you still haven't seen it, note that I've retained the original use of CAPITALIZATION in quoting you. Alonzo is not condemning "EVERYBODY who is a skeptic", only those who use reckless and reprehensible arguments to hide and distort information that can end up devastating cities/populations.

Furthermore, I have presented four specific arguments that would never appear in the claims of a morally responsible skeptic.

The Three Percent ArgumentThe "It's Not the End of the World" ArgumentThe 1970s Fear of a New Ice Age ArgumentThe Mere Fact of Other Natural Causes Argument

I will have a few more arguments that will not appear in the claims of a morally responsible skeptic. However, this leaves open the possibility that a skeptic can make a case without using these morally reckless arguments.

In the course of this discussion I have also criticized the following:

Eneasz, I pointed out in my comment that this so-called "garbage" argument is valid. First, the "scientists" who are trying to hide how warm it was years ago, before the effects of the modern combustion engine and coal burning etc., are the ones using the garbage argument. They are attempting to lie to the public. The better way would be for the one side to admit that the climate has been drastically warmer in the past, and to seek to explain why it occurred, and to prove that the changes today are caused by something different different than previous changes. To go back to my analogy, it would be as if the prosecutor tried to deny that millions of people die naturally of heart attacks. The prosecutor would immediately lose all credibility, and likely the murder conviction along with it.

So, I respectfully disagree that this ia a "garbage" argument, and in fact I believe that, if you were a true ethicist and not just a global warming cheer leader, that you would attack the global warming crowd who tried to cover up how warm it was in times past.

And I do not see anywhere in Al's post where he distinguished some as being morally reprehensible. He lumps everybody making this argument together. That's just plain dumb, but it is also counter-productive. Many innocent people will see themselves as having made the same arguments, will know that they did not do so intentionally trying to be "morally reprehensible", and will cease to listen to Al's arguments. Perhaps I shouldn't waste time trying to make his case more effective, but then again, I'm neutral (leaning skeptic), not a cheerleader for either side.

John, don't worry too much about Eneasz - I'm surprised he hasn't called you a racist or homophobe yet.

Alonzo, can I trust that, in the interest a full ethical treatment on the subject, you will be devoting posts to arguments & tactics a moral person would not use to *promote* belief in humankind's contribution to global warming? As anybody who's been following the real fallout of ClimateGate knows, East Anglia could definitely use a good ethicist....

First, the "scientists" who are trying to hide how warm it was years ago, before the effects of the modern combustion engine and coal burning etc., are the ones using the garbage argument.

Please provide evidence of scientists "trying to hide how warm it was years ago" in any way that would have any effect on the peer-reviewed climate science.

If you are talking about the "hiding" referred to in the emails, note that they were not trying to "hide how warm it was years ago". They were trying to account for a discrepancy in tree-ring data as a proxy for global temperatures during a period in which tree growth was less than computer models predicted. Saying that this represents "trying to hide how warm it was years ago" is a gross misrepresentation of the relevance to the tree-ring proxy in the overall knowledge of climate science.

If you are referring to something else, please provide an account of the "something else" you are referring to.

The better way would be for the one side to admit that the climate has been drastically warmer in the past, and to seek to explain why it occurred, and to prove that the changes today are caused by something different different than previous changes.

I recall all sorts of claims that climate has been drastically warmer in the distant past. Also, carbon dioxide levels were, at times, much higher in the distant past. However, it is not necessary to be able to explain every single climate event in order to determine the current causes of current climate changes.

More importantly, the existence of unexplained changes does not argue against the possibility of knowing a current cause.

Consider the example of the murder trial again. The defense attorney in every murder trial that takes place can argue, "There have been deaths that my client could not have caused," and can even argue, "There have been unexplained deaths."

The mere existence of unexplained deaths does not prove that the accused in this case is innocent, any more than the mere existence of deaths the client did not cause does not prove that the accused in this case is innocent. If it did, then nobody could ever be convicted of a crime. We are constantly surrounded by unexplained events.

Again, you need a standard of evidence that actually makes sense, and not to invent standards that are impossible to meet.

To go back to my analogy, it would be as if the prosecutor tried to deny that millions of people die naturally of heart attacks. The prosecutor would immediately lose all credibility, and likely the murder conviction along with it.

Now, provide evidence that something like "tried to deny that millions of people die naturally of heart attacks" has ever occured in the climate science.

Keep in mind that there are countless cases in which some evidence has been destroyed or declared inadmissable, yet the remaining evidence is more than enough for a conviction.

About Me

When I was in high school, I decided that I wanted to leave the world better off than it would have been if I had not existed. This started a quest, through 12 years of college and on to today, to try to discover what a "better" world consists of. I have written a book describing that journey that you can find on my website. In this blog, I will keep track of the issues I have confronted since then.